6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

First off, I wanted to cite Mike Scioscia for putting Gary Matthews, Jr. in left; with Jered Weaver's flyball tendencies, his outfield defense is a big key to how well he'll do in a given game. Yet, only nine of his 21 outs were in the air, and of those, only five were recorded in the outfield. To my recollection, none of those plays (with the possible exception of GMJ's catch in left to terminate Ian Kinsler's first at-bat) required a really speedy left fielder.

Such are the vicissitudes of pitching, but Weaver certainly made the best of his appearance, striking out six and posting a three-hit shutout through seven frames. It was clearly his best appearance so far this year, and he's showing every sign of returning to his 2006 form that got him nine straight victories. The genuinely cool thing about it was that it happened after the league has had a good look at him, and knows his big weakness against left handed batters.

One of my favorite things to bring to the park is the Baseball-Reference gameday previews, which tells you useful information like batter-vs-pitcher matchups. In particular, we found out that Hank Blalock, Milton Bradley, and Marlon Byrd have just crushed Weaver in a small-sample-sized past. Therefore, controlling those batters was a big key to today's game, especially with Blalock a lefty and Bradley a switch-hitter. Collectively, they went 2-for-11 with a pair of singles. Indeed, the hardest-hit ball came off the lefty bat of Josh Hamilton, a two-out double in the first that represented the furthest advance of any Texas baserunner versus the Weav. But Weaver quickly settled down; even after giving up a leadoff single to Blalock in the second, Jeff Mathis subsequently picked him off to much applause, and so Weaver faced the minimum in that frame, something he managed in five frames overall, including a run of the last eleven straight. It was, simply, a masterful performance, all the more amazing because Weaver didn't have everything working:

“I went up to Butcher (pitching coach Mike Butcher) after the first inning and said, `It might be a long one. I don’t really have my best stuff. I don’t really know where the ball is going.’ Then he said, `Hey, just go out there and act like you’ve got your best stuff and don’t let them think that you don’t have your A-game.’ “

Weaver said he might be suffering from a little dead-arm, but he sure didn't pitch like it.

Given the Rangers' extreme left-handed lineup (six of the nine were batting from the left side of the plate to take advantage of Weaver's historical weakness), it was an odd choice to see Scioscia trot out Darren Oliver in the eighth. Oliver had a reverse split against lefties last year, .289/.343/.467 vs .209/.278/.275, and so it came as not much of a surprise when lefty David Murphy took Oliver over the right field fence for a leadoff homer. Oliver took care of the next two, but that was all Scioscia wanted to see, and Justin Speier made the final out.

B-Ref's game preview turned prescient again in the top of the ninth when Frankie came in to finish things up. After retiring Josh Hamilton and Bradley on hot smashes to short, I looked up K-Rod's numbers against Hank Blalock only to discover Blalock was OPSing 1.118 against his opponent. Sure enough, he doubled with two outs. Ron Washington then sent Frank Catalanotto out to pinch hit — perhaps channeling Catalanotto's 1-1 with a walk last year. It didn't work, as the Rangers' outfielder hit a hard smash straight to Kotchman to end the game.

The Angels' offense was predictably stymied by Kevin Millwood's pitching. Unlike last year, when injuries either kept him off the field or limited his effectiveness, he seems to be more-or-less healthy despite an early hamstring strain that limited his spring training appearances. Despite the loss, the Texas starter ended the game with a 1.29 ERA. The complete game also ended a franchise record in futility, 195 games without a complete game, the longest in the AL. (The Rangers' last was August 29, 2006 against the Orioles, also pitched by Millwood.) The Angels got their hits, but save for Torii Hunter's RBI double in the fifth, none of their hits fell for extra bases. (You could argue that Anderson's one-out single in the seventh should have been a double, but thanks to some solid fielding from RF Bradley, who correctly played the carom off the wall, Anderson merely got a long single.) Halo hitting continued a baffling trend of grounding into double plays, bouncing into a pair of 6-4-3's to end threats in the fifth and seventh.

Figgins never hit Millwood at all, going 0-for-lifetime against the Texas hurler; he'll have to wait for his first career hit.

More notes:

• K-Rod's velocity was down, markedly, throwing only in the low 90's. We saw the park radar gun get up to 91, but that was it, and his command was a bit loopy, too. It's nothing to worry about at this stage, but it is something to keep an eye on.
• Angel Hernandez called Erick Aybar out at the plate on Gary Matthews, Jr.'s single; from our vantage (and apparently the TV replay according to the radio announcers) Aybar was safe. Bad calls are a part of baseball, I guess.
• Before the game, Torii Hunter got the Marvin Miller Award, something that's delivered unto general good guys for community service, and Vlad collected his seventh Silver Slugger, and his fourth straight.

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